The invention concerns a container, especially a reusable container made of plastic material.
Reusable containers are for the most part provided with collapsible side walls, so that the empty container can be transported with the side walls folded down onto the floor and the smaller volume that is thus produced. Normally such side walls are articulated to the floor of the container by means of linkage hinges or film hinges. In their upright position, the side walls are locked to each other, which is usually done by means of locking elements. To this end, the side walls in contact with each other at an edge are provided with appropriate locking hooks and locking catches that in the upright position engage with each other and thus lock the walls to each other. However, most of the hitherto known constructions (designs) have the drawback that unlocking the box or container is not an easy operation and that in most cases the locking elements have to be separately released by hand, which is very laborious and leads to poor handling of the container. This has negative effects on the commercial and technical acceptability of such containers. To this one has to add the fact that such containers have for the most part to be handled by inexperienced personnel who, whenever the container cannot easily be unlocked, often have recourse to force, so that the locking elements are very quickly destroyed.
It is therefore the task of the invention to create a locking device suitable for a reusable container that will make it possible for the container to be unlocked simply and quickly even by inexperienced personnel, but also assures a reliable and stable locking of the side walls in the upright position.